Life and politics from the Sunshine State's best city

Pam Keith

More national help is on the way to promote Republican U.S. Reps. Brian Mast of the Treasure Coast and Carlos Curbelo of Miami, with the launch this weekend of “Super Saturday” grassroots efforts organized by The Congressional Leadership Fund.

While he’s not sure if he will attempt to resume his political career by running against Charlie Crist in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, former Republican congressman David Jolly says he will be part of another campaign in the future – a GOP effort to block Donald Trump from being renominated in 2020 as the party’s presidential nominee.

Is Pam Keith running for Congress, or is she still seeking a U.S. Senate seat? In a new fundraising email to supporters, Keith – who recently announced a bid for Florida’s 18th Congressional District – flaunts an endorsement from the Democracy for America chapters in both Broward and Miami-Dade counties. DFA is the progressive committee founded in 2004 by former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean, which boasts more than one million members.

Florida lawmakers have been filing bills this week for the 2017 Legislative Session, and one of the most provocative ones so far is an immigration-related issue from Sarasota Republican Sen. Greg Steube. As initially reported by the Tampa Bay Times Claire McNeill, Steube would repeal the Jack Latvala-sponsored bill that waives out-of-state fees for undocumented Florida high school students. “It is certainly a big issue in my district among my constituents, who were frustrated and upset that the state would allow undocumented illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-supported,…

So much in the news today to discuss, but let’s start (and end) with a review of last night’s debate between Marco Rubio and Patrick Murphy. If you were scoring at home (congratulations if you were, to paraphrase Keith Olbermann from his ESPN days), you might have had Rubio up by a few points at the end, but like the first debate, it was relatively competitive throughout. Rubio has a lot more experience on the debate stage, which is why Murphy should have debated Pam Keith and…

Floridians will get their first chance to observe Marco Rubio and Patrick Murphy in the same room together when they engage in their first debate of Florida’s U.S. Senate contest in Orlando tonight. Trailing by an average of around five percentage points through all of the polling, Murphy needs to have a big performance in him to begin to narrow that gap, especially with so many people already voting on every day in early mail voting. First impressions matter — this the first time…

Patrick Murphy and Marco Rubio announced Monday they would debate three times and participate in a separate campaign forum, bringing an end to speculation Murphy was reluctant to engage in debates with the GOP Senate incumbent. However, there’s still a dispute about how many events they will actually have, because Rubio says two of the events have ties to Murphy supporters. The first debate will be held in Orlando on October 17, and is sponsored by POLITICO, ABC affiliate WFTV, and Cox Media, and will be…